I had dreamed of going to India for ages. At the age of 14, I spent the entire summer vacations in the town library, reading up on religions. India fascinated me because of Hinduism and the birth of Buddhism. Years later I read Max Weber’s “The Religions of India” and “The Religions of China” - not the most readable or the most reliable summaries, in an awful English translation - and the Indian volume got me intrigued all over again.

I realize that speaking to each person separately I’m going to repeat myself till the subject begins to wear thin and the words substitute for memory. So I’ve decided to put my impressions in writing and send them out to friends.

I had dreamed of going to India for ages. At the age of 14, I spent the entire summer vacations in the town library, reading up on religions. India fascinated me because of Hinduism and the birth of Buddhism. Years later I read Max Weber’s “The Religions of India” and “The Religions of China” - not the most readable or the most reliable summaries, in an awful English translation - and the Indian volume got me intrigued all over again.

In 1989 I discovered the great epics - chiefly the Mahabharata - and began to read as much of the Vedas and Upanishads as are available in English, and then the appetite for India became quite urgent. Finally, in 2000, the opportunity arose to go there in company with a young cousin of mine, a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, who has lived in various places in India over the years, who studies Sanskrit and speaks Hindi. This cousin turned out to be an excellent companion and guide, which made all the difference. I would not have been able to see nearly so much or so well without him.

We arrived in Delhi on a chilly day, on 11th December 2000. We went to stay in Paharganj, which I later discovered to be especially popular with the younger Israeli wanderers, of whom there seemed to be an astonishing number over there. Paharganj is a rather scruffy part of this grand and gracious capital - a mass of dirty, crowded alleys, with markets selling every kind of merchandise. But the hotels are reasonably clean, very reasonable in price. Cows wander through the alleys, looking quite healthy and not at all scrawny. Now and then a noisy brass band marches past at the head of a wedding party, the groom riding on a white horse with a small child before him, followed by women in gorgeous sarees bearing gifts or trays. Once in a while an elephant lumbers past with some people perched on its back, right through the narrow, crowded alley with its stalls and merchandise all over the place.

After a few days we began to travel. The first foray was northwards to Haridwar, in Uttar Pradesh, by train. It’s a four-hour journey and the train ride was comfortable, with good food served directly to the passengers. Haridwar is en route to Dehra Dun, a place which sounded familiar from books and stories. Haridwar itself is on the Ganga, and is the site of some lovely temples. At sundown there is a religious ceremony on the river bank, with bells and chanting and fires on the bank and little flames sent floating on the water. Women sang Vedic chants. Thousands of people gathered to take part in the ritual, and some actually jumped and swam in the river, though it was very cold. The Mansa Devi temple is perched on a hilltop overlooking the town, and can be reached by cable car. (Serious pilgrims climb up on foot.) This temple was my introduction to the kind of worship which seems peculiarly Indian. Whole families go there, complete with grannies and babies, buy offerings - puffed rice, flowers, incense, etc - make the rounds of the images, prostrate themselves, pray and walk on. It’s a combination of religious worship with family outing and entertainment, and there is none of the fearful solemnity that is associated with religious worship in the monotheistic world. I made my little contribution and the local temple priest gave me a blessing, tied a red-and-yellow string around my right wrist and a piece of red-and-gold fabric around my head. The former is left on till it falls off (it hasn’t done so yet) and the latter is removed at once and kept.

From Haridwar we went to Rishikesh, a small town higher up in the foothills, where the Ganga begins its journey towards the plains. It is a centre of religious studies and various gurus attract a regular crowd of both local and foreign disciples and students. It’s an especially serene place. The air itself is pure and serene. A long suspension bridge slung high above the Ganga links the two sides of Rishikesh, and though cars can’t cross it, motorbikes and bicycles do, and it can be a bit hairy. In the mountains above, beside a bend in the river as it rushes down, there is a very quiet little ashram with two or three safron-clad yogis, and nearby there is a cave. It’s simply a narrow cave than runs into the mountainside. Inside it’s pitch dark and there are no images or lights. We sat very still in the silent darkness for some time - a soothing, peaceful feeling. Outside, near the entrance to the cave, hung the picture of the mysterious Babaji - an old man bundled in a yellow cloth, sitting with one leg across his knee - and a tiny altar, where later we saw two women light camphor cones and do a little puja before going inside.

One morning in Rishikesh we had breakfast in a little restaurant overlooking the river and got into conversation with a middle-aged Indian couple. The man was a construction engineer who was working on a project nearby - all India seems to be in a ferment of construction - and his wife was a librarian. They asked about us and told us about themselves. They were friendly and kindly and the woman gave me a warm hug when we parted. Such encounters happened to us repeatedly, because people were so open and direct, yet very gentle. My cousin referred to me as Buaji - meaning, aunt-on-the-father’s-side, with the respectful suffix “ji” - and people seemed to think it the most natural thing that a young man should be travelling with an elderly aunt.

The next stage was Rajasthan, the princely state. Its three main cities are Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur - the red, blue and white cities. We stayed in Udaipur, which is a bewildering combination of great beauty and squalor. The lake, the palaces in the middle of the lake and on the surrounding hilltops, are breathtaking. But the alleys are squalid and smelly, with sewage flowing in uncovered channels down the streets. There I saw a remarkable figure, made up and dressed to look like Krishna, with blue skin. An exquisite, epicene creature, he strutted and pranced, his face immobile, and demanded money without uttering a word. But I didn’t have any change on me and had to shake him off.

The film “Octopussy” - an old James Bond flick with Roger Moore in the lead - was filmed in Udaipur. Consequently, it is shown in video every night at 7:30 in every rooftop restaurant.

From Udaipur we flew south to Mangalore, on the west coast of India, between the Arabian Sea and the mountain range called the Western Ghats. This is the state of Karnataka, which turned out to be as beautiful and as clean as I’d been told. The landscape reminded me of Jamaica - mountains, red soil, coconut palms and banana plantations. We travelled to a town called Puttur, and stayed in the countryside nearby as the guests of a local family and a Hinduized, middle-aged German who had been living there for years. This German, a friend of my cousin’s, also teaches Transcendental Meditation. Mr Rama Naik, a retired postmaster, and his family, are devotees of Sai Baba. Their house is full of his pictures and books about him. Sai Baba is still youngish, has fat, rather Negroid, features and a big Afro, and is often seen smiling. His picture in the puja room had me puzzled. I joined the family puja on a couple of evenings - sitting on the floor with the father and three of his children, one of whom has an exceptionally sweet voice. She sang chants while her brother - a student of electronics - beat a little drum, and her sister - a student of ayurvedic medicine - shook a small tambourine. Later the father did all the ritual things with the flowers, the little bell, the camphor flame, finally smeared some ash on his children’s foreheads, and gave me some to put on myself. While everything was going on - it was quite soothing and almost hypnotic - I looked at Sai Baba’s picture and found his smile puzzling. It seemed to be very complacent. Was it a smile of contentment, “shanti”, bliss, or compassion? Was he relishing the adulation and worship with which he was surrounded, or was there something in his eyes that said, “Don’t worry, it’s all right!”? Did he know something we didn’t? - I’ve no idea, but would like to keep an open mind, especially since so many sceptical outsiders who have met him have been captivated and won over. The shelves in the house were stuffed with books by various Westerners, among them a Catholic priest from the Vatican, who became Sai Baba’s devotees.

Our days in the country near Puttur were delightful. The house is very simple. Hot water for washing is prepared by heating a big oildrum on a smoky fire of kindling. The “bathroom” is a shack where you mix the hot water with cold and pour it over yourself with a jug, while the adjoining toilet is what we used to call a Turkish lavatory, but without benefit of a flush, and leads to a septic tank. To all of which you have to add nocturnal mosquitoes and squirrels which hold noisy, chattering arguments in the trees. Snakes are also seen from time to time, though I was lucky enough not to see any. Electricity is available but fails for hours on end.

One day we were invited to lunch at the house of a Brahmin family who were friends of my companions. They live in a farm not far from Puttur, down a particularly rough dirt road. They fed us a wonderful meal that was entirely free from peppers of any kind - a special effort for people who are used to spice up everything with enough red and green chillies to set fire to palates like ours. They did not eat with us, of course, only kept refilling our plates. The family has three “cows milking”, and a number of peons of low caste who work outdoors. However, the relations between the castes seemed soft enough. A low-caste woman drew water from the well and carried it into the kitchen. The younger grandson, frightened by the strange-looking visitors, clutched the neck of one of the peons, who hugged him gently. They were busy building a big arbour in preparation for the celebration of the older boy’s “upanayana” - a rite of passage for Brahmin boys, when they get their sacred thread and are taught the sun mantra which they will say every morning. Three hundred people were expected to attend.

The primary school near where we stayed swarmed with thin but healthy-looking children with big, bright eyes. They were fascinated by the strangers and crowded around, giggling and twittering. Without a word of English beyond “Hello!” and “Good morning”, there was not much communication. But the word “cricket” aroused a lively response, and the boys pointed to a lad of about 12 who, they indicated, was their best player. I was to see cricket played almost wherever we went. (Driving is on the left, and the English spelling is British. Otherwise there is not a great deal to remind you of British rule.)

From Puttur we went to the town of Udupi, near the coast. There was a festival in progress, which meant that the town was bursting with pilgrims and there was a lot of noise - chanting at all hours through loudspeakers in the temple forecourt. The Krishna temple has two elephants, a male and a young female. They take the offerings - bananas to eat and rupees to hand to their keepers - and give blessings, namely, a gentle touch of the trunk on the giver’s head. In the evening there was a wonderful procession with the smaller image of the god taken on a huge, elaborate wheeled structure - the original juggernaut, or jaganath - with beautifully-costumed children perched on it and the elephants in front, right round the centre of town, accompanied by hundreds if not thousands of worshippers. Again that distinctly Indian atmosphere of devotion and sociability combined.

The following morning our German friend took me into the temple. The crowds inside were also very relaxed and cheerful, yet plainly devout. Couples came in with children, women sat along the wall, chatting informally, a young woman came in, sat beside a column and began to sing. A young man in Western clothes came in, prostrated himself in front of Krishna’s image, prayed briefly, then went on to receive holy water and sandalwood paste - and back to work... A thousand little lights flickered and the scent of flowers and incense filled the air. A truly wonderful place.

The square and the surrounding alleys were filled with stalls selling puja articles, including heaps of fresh flowers. Some of the objects were exquisite. In a small shop specializing in sandalwood I bought a little carving of Ganesha, the genial elephant-headed god, seated on his throne. He’s India’s most popular god, and believed to help remove obstacles.

Uwe, our German friend, told me that Yogananda, the famous author of “Biography of a Yogi”, said he’d met Jesus and described him to an artist. The resulting portrait shows a very unusual Christ - not the agonized figure on the cross, nor the sweet shepherd, but a youngish man with a piercing, intense gaze. A rebel, a man with a mission, a charismatic leader. Uwe gave me a photograph of the portrait, and as it happened, it was Christmas Eve... This was a bit eerie.

We went to the seaside and sat on the shore, watching the sun set over the Arabian Sea. Tiny, transparent crabs darted here and there, scuttling into their holes at the slightest move. Moribund starfish littered the beach. Lots of people were taking the air - families, groups of young men. A few actually went into the water, but not very far. Then a group of young lads - between 17 and 22 - approached us. They addressed not Uwe, who was meditating in his white dhoti, nor my cousin, but the young chap travelling with us, whose dark beard and long hair gave him a conventional Christ-like look, and asked about the lectures on Transcendental Meditation which had been advertised.

Watching the calm Arabian Sea turning to molten gold in the sunset, I wondered if this was where the people of the village of Titlipur - in Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” - began to march across the sea to Mecca.

***

Early the following morning we left Udupi for Mangalore, and from there flew to Chennai, aka Madras. (India is busily changing a lot of place-names: Mumbai instead of Bombay, Kochi for Cochin, Kolkata for Calcutta, Tiruvananthapuram for Trivandrum, etc.) Thanks to a technical glitch which delayed us, Indian Airlines permitted us to fly first east to Madras and then to turn back west - zigzagging is not normally allowed in this system of pre-paid flights.

The contrast between Udupi and Madras was almost shocking. The latter is the capital of the huge state of Tamil Nadu, and a vast, bustling, businesslike metropolis. In some ways it appears more Westernized than Delhi - more street-signs and hoardings in English, and a Western kind of briskness and busyness in the streets. But of course there were also the shabby, impoverished alleys and people sleeping on the pavements.

Here I had my first exposure to the purely sensuous delights that India can offer, in a shop devoted to the finest fabrics made in this country. “Nalli’s” is huge and overpowering. The senses begin to reel after a while from the onslaught of colours and textures. It’s an Ali Baba’s cave of the most amazing, sumptuous silks. For someone like me, with a passion for colours, “Nalli’s” Madras shop is heaven. If I’d had a million dollars to spend and enough time to browse, I’d probably have gone mad. There is an Indian genius for colours and textures. Even in the very ordinary, middle-class restaurants where we often ate, the women’s dresses - whether sarees or salwar-kamiz - were more gorgeous than the outfits seen in the most expensive establishments in Paris, Milan or New York. But Madras also has very Western shopping malls with supermarkets, and a huge, old-established bookstore, “Higginbotham”, where the number and variety of people browsing in the religious section was very remarkable.

The next day we went to Kapaliswaram temple, in south Madras. It’s an omnium-gatherum sort of temple, a towering structure entirely covered in coloured statues. It’s dedicated to Dakshnamurti, who is shown as a teacher sitting under a tree with his disciples around him, as well as a variety of deities and altars. Fire, flowers, camphor lights, red and ash streaks on foreheads. Families with children and the same atmosphere of devotion, some of it very intense. A part of the inner temple is for Hindus only. My cousin went right in, but I stayed outside. I saw a child hugging a bronze Nandi (the bull who is Shiva’s vehicle), and whispering urgently into its ear. The images in the temple shrines are usually made of black stone with minimal features. They are regularly bathed, oiled, decorated with flowers.

In Madras, at long last, I bought a Nataraj - a statue of the dancing Shiva. The creator and destroyer of worlds, he is all dynamic movement while the circle around him expresses perfection and eternity. I’d wanted to get this figure for a long time, but my cousin, a perfectionist, disapproved of all the examples we saw, on various grounds, till I finally put my foot down and bought one which I liked. (Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, was so shaken by the sight of the first atom bomb test that he quoted the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” The Nataraj always reminds me of this.)

It is time to note that, the usual warnings notwithstanding, I saw nothing especially harrowing in India. There ARE beggars, there ARE street-dwellers, there clearly IS dire poverty in many places, but the horrible sights that one is always told about did not materialize. I did not see a single deformed child, supposedly mutilated by its parents or guardians for the sake of alms. There ARE crippled beggars - obviously victims of polio, and in some cases leprosy or even elephantiasis - but they were all adults, over thirty at least. It’s evident that the nasty, body-deforming epidemics are a thing of the past. I did read about malnutrition in remote rural areas, and about places where the water is tainted with arsenic and the soil is badly eroded or poisoned. Overall, I’d say that if you are extremely fastidious and can’t stand the sight of cowpats and generalized dirt and litter, the occasional scurrying mouse or rat, or scenes of poverty and squalor - not famine, just material misery - then India may be too much for you. But anyone who has spent time anywhere in the so-called Third World will not be horrified. The margin of misery and dirt was there, less so in the south than in the north, but people on the whole looked healthy and the children, even the dirty urchins of the street-dwellers, looked bright-eyed and healthy. And I saw more smiles - genuine, warm, good-natured smiles - than in any other country I’ve ever been to.

It was in Madras that I first heard about the international incident that followed the wedding of a film actor by name of Hritik Roshan. This Bollywood heartthrob, with chiselled features, light complexion (which the Indians call “wheatish”) and hazel eyes, married his childhood sweetheart in Nepal. Then the media reported some uncomplimentary remarks he had allegedly said about Nepal - and all hell broke loose. The underlying resentment of the Nepalis against big sister India led to riots. The Nepalese police shot some students. There was a general strike in protest against the police... Indian films were boycotted, while in India, films with a popular but Nepalese-born actress were also taken off. A major international incident swelled and filled the media, while the handsome bridegoom protested he had never said the things attributed to him.

Reading the papers in English - the dailies Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express or The Hindu, and the weeklies Outlook and Frontline - gave me some idea of events in the Subcontinent. The Middle East was covered in the extensive international sections, where our region is called “West Asia”. The papers are impressively good, the magazines excellent. One subject which increasingly filled the media was the Kumbh Mela, the great Hindu festival which takes place every 12 years along the Ganga, centering on Allahabad. This being the first Kumbh Mela of the century and the millennium, and - according to the astrologers - especially auspicious, it was expected to draw 70 million pilgrims, most of them of course Hindus. As it takes place over several weeks - with certain dates being extra auspicious - the human mass would be just manageable. Pictures and reports about the “Maha (great) Kumbh” occupied more and more media space.

A thought that came into my mind early on, when we were travelling by train to Haridwar, was - where did the British get the sheer nerve, the incredible hutzpah, to come over and rule this country? I recalled that in Plain Tales From the Raj many of the old India hands expressed this same wonder, asking themselves how it was done, and why they got away with it.

***

We generally had our main meals in middle-range restaurants, which by two o’clock were filled with middle-class Indians, families, business people, men in dhotis or suits, groups of women on an outing, and so on. Most of the people ate with their hands - indeed most Indians do. The food is bunched into mouthfuls with the fingers of the right hand, while the left hand rests on the table, virtually useless. In many restaurants a bowl of warm water with a sliver of lime is brought by the waiters at the end of the meal, to rinse the fingers in. Finally there are little bowls of fennel seeds to refresh the mouth and help the digestion.

Speaking of groups of women on an outing - despite horror stories about women being burned alive for the sake a new dowry, I got the impression that women were not badly off, at least in urban Hindu society. You see women whizzing around on motorbikes and girls on bicycles. Women sell in the stores, and in the south we saw women managing hotels and shops. In the south, too, women often wear flowers in their hair. There doesn’t seem to be anything flirtatious about it, it’s customary, like the tikka on the forehead. (The exception to all the above are the Muslim women, who go about in black burkas and are often veiled.) This is a family-oriented society, and you see couples everywhere, young ones with children and grannies, older couples travelling together companionably.

Before leaving Madras we went to the seaside and watched the waves rolling in from the Bay of Bengal. Thus is a matter of days we saw both the western and the eastern shores of India. It remained to see the point where they met.

We flew to Cochin on New Year’s Eve. Here, as in Madras, there were lots of Christmas decorations and Happy New Year streamers, which seemed to fit in nicely with the general tendency to decorate things - chiefly images, of course - with flower garlands, twinkling lights, tinsel and necklaces of all sorts.

Cochin is in Kerala, the state which the social-economist Amartya Sen made famous by showing that, although it’s one of the poorer states in India, it achieved a high standard of literacy, good female education and gender-parity, a low birthrate and good life-expectation. I was eager to see the place for myself, and disappointed to find just as many street dwellers in Cochin as in Madras or Delhi. It seems that the problem of unemployment is weighing heavily on the state’s resources. The Indian Express, a southern daily, discussed it in extensive reports about the local economy and its difficulties. Then the man who made Kerala world-famous came to India - Amartya Sen in person, Nobel laureate in economics, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was feted all over the place, so that eventually he joked that it was time for him to leave and let Kerala get back to normal life. He offered some detailed advice about how to cope with the wave of globalization and market economics which are about to wash over India.

In Cochin we saw Kathakali dancers - a traditional Kerala art-form which Arundhati Roy describes in her novel, The God of Small Things. The dances depict scenes from the Hindu epics and myths. The form is ancient and highly stylized, and the public are invited to come an hour before the show to watch the dancers being made up. Devan, the elderly director of the little company, explained that every aspect of the makeup - which is so heavy and elaborate that it amounts to a mask - has a meaning, and so does every gesture of every part of the body, even each finger. However, things don’t stand still, he said. For example, the hand gesture that signifies “Fish” has changed over the years, because the actors-dancers observed fishes in aquariums, which altered their perception of the animal’s movement. He also explained the characteristic Indian head movement, a kind of semi-circular wobble. He said: “Western people are very confident, so they shake their heads horizontally to signify No, and nod vertically to signify Yes. But we Indians are not so sure, so we nod and shake our heads at the same time.” He also said that visiting foreigners should be patient with India - she’s still developing, what with the World Bank and everything, and growing rapidly. “For example, when you come again in twenty years time you’ll probably find that the mosquitoes have grown much bigger.”

Modern Cochin is on the mainland and is called Ernakulam. To see the older parts, i.e., Mattancherri and Bolgatty Island, you have to take a boat. So we took a tourist boat and went to see the sights. The boat was full of Indians from other parts of the country, families with children, honeymoon and elderly couples, and four ill-assorted Italians. As we moved slowly and noisily across the backwaters we could see warships of the Indian navy farther away, in the great naval base of Cochin.

Landing in Mattancherri - a tongue of land that juts into the bay - you are greeted by a sign saying “Welcome to Jewtown”. This was where Jews used to live and run their shops, and their presence was still noticeable in various shops and street signs. The old synagogue is the main historical attraction. As in any temple or shrine, you have to take off your shoes, but here there is an added reason: the floor is laid with exquisite Chinese porcelain tiles, no two alike. Nowadays there are only two Jewish families left in Cochin - though another family is expected to return from Israel - and the government of Kerala takes care of the synagogue.

In Cochin Fort there is a 16th century palace, which was built by the Portuguese and given to the king of Kerala. It’s very much a renaissance building but with local features, with low-hanging roofs sheltering running balconies over inner courtyards. Inside, the walls are covered with lovely murals depicting scenes from the Ramayana and the life of Krishna. Unfortunately the murals are fading and will probably become completely invisible in a few years. On display were also royal palanquins, ceremonial costumes and swords. It appears that the last king of Kerala was an enlightened man - he was not only a Sanskrit scholar, but also a progressive guy who abolished “landlordism”, years before the government of independent India did so with the “Zamindari Law” in the early 50s. (The upheavals following that law in 1952 are vividly described in Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy”.)

Outside the place sat a man with a covered straw basket containing a couple of cobras, and a little mongoose which was tied by a string to a heavy stone that it kept circling in desperation. It was a shame to see poor little Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (the name of the brave mongoose in Kipling’s story) so helpless and unhappy. I didn’t stop to watch the performance.

The main attraction of Bolgatty Island is the Church of St Francis, also built by the Portuguese in the 16th century, where Vasco da Gama was originally buried; his remains were later taken to Lisbon. In Ernakulam a very different structure, going back to the days of British rule, is the Durbar Hall (the official reception building of the ruler). It’s a very peaceful place just off an ordinary city street - spacious, grand, surrounded by large grounds with tall trees and bananas plants. It also serves as an art gallery with paintings by local artists. It was easy to imagine the place bustling with all the pomp and grandeur of the old days of the Raj. I thought the present peace and quiet were much more attractive.

Cochin was for centuries a leading purveyor of spices to Europe, and this was the source of its wealth. Salman Rushdie uses this history - and the Jews’ place in it - in his novel The Moor’s Last Sigh .

Our next stop was Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, and from there to Kanniyakumari (itself in Tamil Nadu), on the very southern tip of India, where the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal merge into the Indian Ocean. This turned out to be the high point of my trip.

Kanniyahkumari is the goddess in her virgin aspect, and she’s depicted as a sweet-faced young woman holding a garland as she waits for her bridgegroom Shiva. The entire town revolves around the temple, which dominates the tip of the land. This is truly Land’s End, Finis terre. As we approached the temple on the evening of our arrival, a little pundit boy popped out of the nearby ashram - a beautiful, bright-eyed little chap, about 8 or 9, who remembered my cousin by name, though he’d only met him once, almost a year before. He even remembered the name of my cousin’s friend who’d been with him then. At the time he’d been one of a class of pundit boys - Brahmin boys being brought up by their gurus, training to become priests. Their heads are shaved, except for a strand left at the crown, slender enough to go through a ring. He looked so fresh, so wholesome and cheerful, that any doubt I might have had about the life these boys lead, away from their families, was dispelled immediately. He and his elderly teacher took us quickly through the temple, though it was about to close for the evening, and later arranged for us to be present at the next morning puja.

The temple and the area around it are fragrant with the masses of flowers, which are on sale outside, along with other kinds of offerings. Though there are the usual tourist-trap stalls right up to the temple gate, the atmosphere is very pure.

My windows faced both east and south, overlooking the two little islands on one of which stand a small shrine dedicated to Vivekananda, and on the other - an immense statue of a Tamil sage (whose name I’m afraid I’ve forgotten). It’s the biggest statue I’ve ever seen, probably as big as the Colossus of Rhodes, and is lit up at night. It had only recently been finished, by way of a proud Tamil response to all those Aryans saints from the north.

At five o’clock in the morning came a knock on my door: “Sunrise!” I got up and stood at the window to wait for the sun to rise. There was the delicate sound of a flute playing somewhere. As the darkness began to clear I saw that down below, all along the shore and on the temple terrace, stood a vast silent crowd, hundreds or thousands of men and women, looking east and waiting for the sun to rise. On a roof nearby stood a group of men dressed entirely in black - they were Ayappans, who at this time of year observe a 40-days’ strict abstinence, in honour of the Lord Ayappa.

As soon as the horizon began to lighten, dozens of little boats left the shore - some made for the shrines but most set out to sea. The crowd did not disperse until the sun was well up in the sky. Later my cousin and I went to the temple to see the morning puja. Thousands of people shuffled past the shrine, peeped at the goddess and received a pinch of red power to smear on their foreheads. The goddess was washed with milk, then with coconut milk and finally showered with flower petals. Beside me a Tamil woman recited softly the Devi’s numerous names out of a little book. There was also a Western woman in a yellow saree, who later turned out to be an American member of my cousin’s movement of Transcendental Meditation.

If ever a place had what people call “good vibes”, this was it.

Back in Trivandrum, I found in the drawer of the bedside table in my hotel room - where in the West there is usually a Gideon Bible - a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, in the original Sanskrit with English translation and commentary by Swami Prabhupada of the Hare Krishna movement (known in India as Iskcons). In the evening a music school held a show on a makeshift stage in a nearby street - the girl students performed traditional dances to traditional music. Their families and casual passersby, like ourselves, crowded the street. The girls, in groups of 10 to 16-year-olds, were very graceful and their costumes were beautiful. When they finished, they bent and touched the feet of the musicians, their teachers, by way of respectful thanks.

We returned to Delhi only to fly on to the holy city of Varanasi, aka Benares. At first glance, it struck me as even filthier and more decrepit than Delhi’s Paharganj. It was also much less Westernized - the signs were almost entirely in Hindi, hardly any in English, though there were quite a few tourists around, many of the wild-eyed variety. But what dismayed me was the association with death. We went down to the ghats - the great, broad steps leading down to the river - which swarmed with people, cows, goats and merchandise, chiefly of puja requirements. The burning ghat, where bodies are burned and the ashes consigned to the river, was smoking away. Cremations go on day and night. We took a little rowing boat and went up the river along the city - it’s amazingly beautiful seen from this side. Palaces and forts and immense ghats line the water. The river was low this time of year, but when it swells it reaches up to the top of the ghats and even halfway up the nearest buildings, and the far bank can’t be seen. Boatloads of tourists - many of them Japanese or Korean - converged on the burning ghat, to stare through binoculars and to take photographs. This I found unpleasant, and wondered how we would feel if tourists crowded our cemeteries to stare at our funerals and take pictures.

Moreover, as you walk through the narrow alleys of old Benares you keep running into groups of men carrying dead bodies on litters at shoulder level, calling out repeatedly: “Ram nam satya hai! Ram nam satya hai!” (meaning, the name of Rama is truth). The corpses are covered with glittering red and gold cloth which is manufactured for the purpose and sold everywhere in Benares. I had to keep retreating into shops or entrances to avoid them. A nice young man who ran an Internet office - there are such offices everywhere, and they’re always packed, with Indians and tourists alike - told me he used to be disturbed by this endless traffic of corpses, but no longer noticed them.

In the evening I saw Benares from a rooftop restaurant, and the vision under the full moon, clothed in a light mist, was majestic. The city curves along the Ganga and really looks timeless and mysterious. I decided to stay on, ignore the traffic of corpses and get the most out of the place.

By way of complete contrast, we drove to Sarnath - a place sacred to Buddhists. It’s where Buddha preached his first sermon. Known also as the Deer Park, it still has some spotted deer, which come to eat the chopped fruit and vegetables sold for the purpose. The main attraction is the huge “stupa” - a solid cylindrical structure built in the 3rd or 4th century. There are also remains of older structures dating back to the Buddhist king Ashoka, i.e., the 3rd century BC. There is also a Buddhist temple with good frescos illustrating the life of Buddha, and a museum. There were a lot of Tibetan monks and nuns around, because they have a centre nearby, where the Dalai Lama stays when he comes to visit Sarnath. The peacefulness of this place contrasted with the intense bustle of Varanasi.

Another place which was peaceful and very attractive was the Hindu University of Benares - an institute of higher learning that serves the whole region. The campus is lovely, with elegant cream-coloured buildings trimmed in dark red, lots of open spaces and trees.

Benares is famous for its gorgeous silk sarees, and we couldn’t resist the temptation. The shop my cousin took me to, where he knew the owners, practically held me captive, as heaps and heaps of the most sumptuous silks were spread before us on the padded, sheet-covered floor. The owner told us that a famous Israeli writer had visited the place - A. B. Yehoshua. I was glad to hear that after setting one of his novels in India he actually came to see the place.

I’m not sure how to describe the experience I had the next day, when we again took a rowing boat and went down the river to the farthest southern ghats. We saw the “dhobi ghat” - where the city’s washing is done in the river, then dried on the great stairs; a ghat where newly-woven sarees are washed and dried; a bathing ghat, and ghats which were occupied mainly by cows and buffaloes. The palaces of the various maharajas looked very imposing in the soft morning light. And then something strange happened to my mind. I’d always thought of the goddess Ganga as a personification of the river - the way she was shown in the Indian television series, Mahabharata. It’s a naive vision and easy to dismiss as a slightly higher form of animism. But suddenly the picture reversed itself, like one of those optical illusions, when a vase turns into two profiles - I saw the great river itself as the embodiment of the goddess. I felt very vividly that the river IS the goddess, and she’s only depicted as a human-like female for convenience... I don’t know if this is how Hindus see it, but it gave me the shivers for a moment.

That evening there was a lunar eclipse, and thousands of people spent the night on the Ganga, bathing in the cold water and performing pujas, sending little flames afloat on the river. The next morning the old alleys were still drowsy and relatively quiet until midday.

Delhi, when we returned there, felt familiar and homelike. I made the most of the remaining days, visited the Red Fort - a vast complex of structures and open spaces, into which you could fit Jerusalem’s Old City twice or three times - and met with a local journalist at the Press Club of India. New Delhi is an imposing city with wide avenues and grand buildings. By contrast, the old parts, such as the area where we stayed, or Chandni Chowk - a market the size of Tel Aviv - are lively, dirty, crowded and exciting. You never know what’s going to turn up before your eyes at any moment. One evening we had dinner at the house of an American diplomat whose wife is Israeli, in a prosperous part of the city called Shantiniketan (named, I suppose, after the famous cultural centre established by Tagore in West Bengal). It was very pleasant, but could have been set in any other country. I much preferred the dirty old alleys.

What have I forgotten to mention? - Many things. Monkeys, for instance, of whom there are lots in certain parts. In Haridwar there are two species, one sweet and timid, much inclined to thieving from balconies and roofs, and the other big and ferocious, with sharp fangs. And the big square pools, called tanks, which adjoin all temples, where people bath for purification, like the Jewish mikveh. And the personal ads column in the newspapers, where offers of marriage are made with very specific references to caste and complexion. And the dhotis, which men in the south like to fold up and tuck into their waists in front, so that they look as if they are wearing very short skirts. And the very noticeable presence of Muslims - of whom there are some 125 millions in India - with their mosques and muezzins - yes, even in Benares! And the great variety of fruit and vegetables which are always perfect and wholesome-looking, beautifully stacked and arranged, as if ready to be photographed and advertised. And the courtesy to me, “buaji”, who was never allowed to stand and wait for anything, because someone was sure to come up with a chair or stool for me to sit on. And the easy smiles that meet your eyes, the friendliness of perfect strangers.

End